I was brought up in Spain. Hence I have always been demonstrative in my affection. It comes easy to me to hug a friend. I curbed the instinct as I soon relized that in a place like India there is a different set of rules. Osho says that intimacy comes from the Latin word
Intimum which means your innermost core. He writes: unless you have something there, you can't be intimate with anybody...because they will see the hole, the wound, the pus oozing out of it. Friendship is only a word now; it has disappeared.and the reason? There is nothing to share. Who wants to show inner poverty? One wants to pretend, : I am rich, I have arrived, I know what I am doing, I know where I am going".